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“If you treated anyone else as you have treated yourself during the past six hours, you would be guilty of assault. This will cease. From this moment on, you will show your body the respect it deserves as God’s creation. You will allow your arms to heal and then you will embark on a sensible and moderate course of physical therapy. You will eat regularly. You will rest properly. You will care for your own body as you would for that of a friend to whom you are indebted. …During these months and for all time, you will cease to arrogate to yourself responsibility that lies elsewhere. Is that clear?”

– Vincenzo Giuliani in The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell

Your fleshhouse and bones-chamber
is the hall of your soul.

Vessel of clay it may be,
but by Godits contents are precious:
your sinew and skeleton garment
is your spirit’s place.

Do not destroy the potter’s work.

Stop fretting on all those slender jars
and their busy shining use;
be emptied, be filled,
emptied, filled,
to glorious ends.

Fill your heart’s coffer
and mindhoard
as filling the home
for your friend
and your lord.

My hands are covered with marks. Earlier I got a prong cut from a file at work. One thumb has a cut from some poorly-wielded scissors. A burn on one pinky went from fiery to swollen to scabby – and whether I’m shifting papers, answering my phone, washing up, or juicing a lime, there’s a dozen different ways of shifting to keep the pressure off those hurts. No need for a bandage, just avoidance, and soon enough the body will take care of itself.

It seals over and quietly rebuilds the skin underneath and though there’s a period of fragility, the point comes when the scab flakes off and the skin beneath may show a scar but is, for all intents and purposes, whole.

I wish the mind did that, that there were a way to see “No, don’t poke there. Please don’t prod me at that spot just yet.” Everyone knows that time helps, that mere avoidance of this or that train of thought can contribute to improvement…but sometimes a song or gesture or chance remark scrapes the scab off, leaving it freshly bleeding once more.

God, help them all clot, and for love of your servant, keep me from scratching at them. Amen.

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